When it comes to fabric, I like the touch of hands.

* This was originally written sometime in November orDecember of 2009.
I had forgotten to publish it.

Lately my mind has been quite blank - therefore the silence.

I need to concentrate on a new collection but I am not able to.

I have always been passionate about woven fabric and we have such a magnificent tradition.

Our craftsmanship is also top notch.

But to run a business I am having to compromise big time.

Mill made material is just not appealing to me, no matter how good the quality.

To me they have no life.

That thought is so absolutely wrong.

People make a living out of the production of these fabrics.

Even then.

I personally can never wear them.

Ideally I would only use hand spun and hand woven textile. But although we do have some production of hand spun yarn, it is too expensive to produce commercial volumes. I know. I have tried. And lost money.

Hand woven still works, but not if the quality is how I wish it to be. I want the traditional beauty. And then  it becomes too expensive for most people who have the taste. 

Unfortunately most of those who have the money to patronise such beauty, would rather have the ostentation of easy, loud glamour. And that is not in the nature of hand woven fabric.

Adoption and Self-Knowledge

I have been rather distressed the last two months. And frustrated. October began with Anita Tedaldi’s piece on the N. Y. Times about the why’s and how’s and most impotantly the justifications of terminating the adoption of her ‘Adopted Son’ and the responses that bombarded the Internet.

Then in November with the U.S. marking the National Adoption Month, the issue of adoption became the focus of some, often prickly, discussions. Each day I grew more and more amazed by the sheer intensity and energy of emotions demonstrated by those involved in the adoption process.

In effect I also got caught up in the heat of it all and drafted ideas from all kinds of perspectives. There are now three potential articles saved on my desktop, but each of them reflected the same unpleasantness that while revising I found distasteful.

Like many, I was also disturbed with the story of little ‘D’ - a story of compounding injudicious actions that added further trauma to the life of this unfortunate boy. Although now that he has a good home and understanding parents, he has a chance to heal.

The fact however remains that with some self-knowledge on Tedaldi’s part, together with more sensitivity and responsibility exercised by the social services, the child would have been saved the mindless trauma.

I do hope that her article does not start a copycat trend in disrupted adoptions.

Adoption is a very personal matter.

Adoptee, birth parent and adoptive parent—each has their own perspective. Then the involvement of the coordinating agency adds a whole different angle to an already complicated story.

It is not easy to be objective about relationships that are so essential to our existence, that are so instinctive and natural that we enter them without thinking, and that are burdened by a mythology of superlative ideals and tremendous expectations.

Perhaps as a result of everybody wanting to achieve that ideal, ‘adoption’ now seems to have become a microcosm, a self-contained world with a vocabulary that only communicates at cross-purposes.

I like to smile. I find it easy to smile and I think others find it easy to smile with me too.

But I haven’t been smiling much the last few weeks, because I am an adoptive mother and for the last fifteen years I have also been a post-adoption counselor.

Chanting

When I stopped working full-time, I joined a comparative philosophy class (very convenient, same lecture and discussion three times a week and three units every week. Could be done on the same day all together or spread over a week. Pretty good arrangement, don’t you think for a person with chronic health problems?). I also spent time reading the scriptures of various religions with guidance from the men and women who are qualified to teach their subject and do so as part of their duties at the monasteries and missions. They were wonderful experiences that I will share in another post.

I don’t know what attracted me to the subject because I had spent the first twenty-five years of my life happily indulging in thoughts and activities that even a very indulgent monastic would stop to consider saying, ‘ Ho ... hum!’ to. :)

Anyhow, after about a decade or so of pottering and digging, seeing all kinds of people and visiting all kinds of places, I sort of began to arrive at an idea of the approach to life that suited me personally. Life encompasses times and circumstances that are completely unpredictable and not always pleasant, and to be able to give of oneself with grace through it all one needs the constancy of personal integrity.

The word Personal is very important to me.

No two people can approach life similarly. Emotional and spiritual advancement may be the final goal that we wish to reach, but each of our journeys is different.

So after trying to find my way to a better understanding and expression of myself, I put together a stream of thoughts into a verse that now inspires and carries me from moment to moment.

As this blog is also the reflection of my thoughts I’ll write it down.

I will respect how I am perceived.

I will respect what I perceive.

I will respect what I imbibe.

I will respect my physical being.

I will respect my intellect.

I will respect my spirit and my further advancement into the spiritual world.

I honour the universe.

I honour Energy within myself and within the life around me.

Together the two of you are the Universal Life Force.

Together You are my life.

Together You lead me to You.

You lead me to Integrity.

You lead me to the Truth.

Bless me so I can experience You.

Bless all who teach me of You.

Bless All who speak of You.

Let me find peace within and around.

I chant these verses to myself often - last thing at night and first thing in the morning as a routine and then at all times of special joy, crisis or sadness. Sometimes I chant them just for the contentment they create in me, when I feel the world is just right.

Chanting calms me. I find it soothing and centering.

Like many others, I am not ritualistic. But I can appreciate the appeal and often the beauty of rituals, and I can understand their purpose.

I find that the rhythmic singing of words limited to a set of repetitive notes in one pitch help at once to lift my concentration from the immediate. The familiar words set to a tone in a single pattern frees my mind from the effort of remembering so I can visualize what I speak.

I have found the notes, rhythm and the pitch I am comfortable with. It is based on a particular classical style that I have grown up with and ‘though I never had ever learned or participated in organized chanting before, I found it easy to teach myself and become familiar with in little time.

This method has worked for me the last five or six years. I am alert to other possibilities that may be more fulfilling, but for now this works.

Dear God

I came across some notes I had scribbled when I was in grade V11.

I found this.

Dear God,

You are weird. I don’t get you. You don’t add up.

You are the Controller of the earth, the fire, the wind and the rain.

You are manifested in the earth, the fire, the wind and the rain.

You are the earth, the fire, the wind and the rain

You have laws that we mortals should live by, but You make and break them at will.

Yet the belief is that living by Your laws will get one to Heaven – where a lifelong of pleasure or salvation awaits.

We sin if we don’t obey and if we repent and ask for forgiveness we are forgiven. It is supposed to be that simple.

Is it?

Now when I am nudging fifty, I know better intellectually,

That’s not enough though, is it?

Raking Up the Past

Does therapy really work?

I don’t mean of the kind where one needs to be working through present issues, - like I need to see a therapist to spew out my frustration with my daughter’s behaviour, she is being treated for OCD (obsessive, compulsive disorder) with an anti-depressant and has gone hypo-manic.

I mean for some of the terrible things that may have happened in the past.

I started to write a blog about a series of events that caused me misery when I was a child. It would have been a textbook detailing of child abuse (Only those who absolutely need to know, know about this. Unfortunately there are some amongst them who I wish now didn't know) by irresponsible, insensitive relatives who were the guardians of an unfortunate child after her mother died of cancer.

Except for one-liners to state the incidents to my psychiatrist so that he was aware in case he ever needed to take them into consideration to prescribe my medications, I have never mentioned the details to anyone.

People perceive me as an optimistic and emotionally strong person and depend on me as a sounding board when they are in a bind. I have never wanted anybody to feel sorry for me. So I have never spoken to anyone.

Since I am writing my blog under a moniker I thought I’d write about those days, but I just couldn’t handle it. I was miserable and had to stop as I felt I could spiral into a depression.

IT WAS FRIGHTENING.

My memory is shot. Much of the details of those times I have forgotten completely. I seem to have always dealt with the unpleasant in life by sweeping those events well under the carpet. As a result I have lost years of my life, but very possibly coped better. My optimism is part of my spirit, but it has caused me much of my memory.

It’s the preferable trade off.

I am Learning to Accept

I am at the bottom of the ‘career’ options ladder now. I feel pretty good here. Contrary to the misgiving of others and myself, it’s not been difficult, not numbing. Not easy … but easier than hard.

One struggles while coming down the steps. Living high up on the ladder feels good. Bloody madness, but a kick all the same.

It’s flattering.

One’s ego begins to swell up into a personality so out of reach that one has to dig deep to find the reality. For a lucky few, the reality emerges from within. The struggle then is less prolonged, less exhausting.

I am one of those lucky ones.

As one climbs down to the lower rungs it takes a while to adjust. It can be either a descent into the well of a loss of self-esteem or liberation from a misplaced one.

I found myself right at the bottom – with some previous indication of what was to come, but finally without a choice.

I had been for long wanting to get out of the bubble I had created around myself, which had slowly begun to trap me in.

And without touching my consciousness my mind and body had both started to rebel against the lifestyle that personally for me should never have been. So subtle was the progress that it took me a long while to make any sense out of it, to know that my expectation from life had to change, that the bubble had begun to shrink. Then one day there was a plop and the bubble was gone.

It was unpleasant, disorienting and disappointing. To be ambitious and successful, that is the mantra of the world I was used to. To give up meant I had dropped out.

For months I floundered. A whole new identity needed acceptance. Introductions needed to be made, dates set up, compatibilities found, adjustments done.

Love at first sight is not what I experienced with the new me.

Yet one day I found there was more air around for me to breathe.

I can’t ignore the pain and the fear of what I will be up against every time a new symptom appears in my body, as it very often does. The frustration with the results of the laboratory tests is never easily accepted. Battling the side effects of the drugs is not a good feeling.

Most of all I hate living with the constant fear that my mind will suddenly go awry. That is something I will do anything to prevent.

All the same, I like the quiet of my mind.

I am free from the worry and the restlessness of many, many obligations and duties that weighed me down before.

I like the fact that now I have the time to be able to learn a classical language and read the old literature that always held a fascination for me.

I can now watch endless tennis on every time line without worrying about being unable to wake up and tired in the morning (the ATP Masters finals are on now). :)

Am I happy?

Yes. At a cost, but considering everything – it’s a good deal.

At least for now it is.

I am so Embarrassed

Its Sunday morning here.

There were some really good friends over for dinner last night.
I went down to meet them late as it is difficult to leave half way through and these days I can't deal with company and conversation for long these days. (Lupus)

Very sweetly they suggested I see this herbalist who has cured ...
I flipped.

I have tried every kind of treatment possible. Herbal, mineral, naturopathy, homeopathy, magnetic, colour therapy, stone therapy, charm bracelets, worships, prayers in every religion. I've travelled to different cities, met holy men, - woken up at ungodly hours. All of this has done myself more harm than good.
I just can't cope with these thought any more.
I know they all mean well, and I am grateful, I really am. But I still get frustrated.

Anyway - I called this morning and apologised. They were really sweet and pretended they didn't know what I was talking about. But I do still feel bad that I got at them.

Today I'll just stay home and sleep, watch the first round of the ATP Master's final that starts today and then if I have the energy write a bit for my blog.
There are three entries I have in mind, but haven't had the energy to write them out.

I will also try and be nicer to people and thank them for wanting to wish me well.